After 31 years with the network and nine as its president, CNN's Jim Walton is calling it quits.
"CNN needs new thinking. That starts with a new leader who brings a different perspective, different experiences and a new plan," Walton, who has been president of CNN since 2003, wrote in a memo to the network's staff earlier today.
CNN has been on the ropes for a good while now, falling behind both Fox News and MSNBC during the all-important primetime hours. In the second three months of this year, the network posted its worst ratings in more than two decades and lost 35% of its audience from the same period in 2011.
Part of CNN's problem is that its #1 and #2 competitors have turned blatantly partisan, which is seen by some as the secret to their success. Walton wouldn't go there, and viewers began to turn away.
It also hasn't helped that CNN has had its share - some say more than its share - of goofs in the recent past. The most recent of these happened when the network erroneously reported that the Affordable Care Act had been struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court, when the opposite was, in fact, true.
No word yet on Walton's replacement.
0 comments:
Post a Comment